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Inside The Bills

Here’s a look at the playtime percentages for some of the players who saw increased action Sunday at Cincinnati.

Percy Harvin saw his playing time increase. He had 46 snaps good for 71 percent of the offensive workload. Would he have seen that much time had Robert Woods not suffered a knee injury? Hard to say. We thought going in he’d get between 35-40 snaps, so this figure wasn’t all that different.

Seantrel Henderson pretty much split the work down the middle with Jordan Mills. Henderson go 34 snaps (52%) and Mills had 35 (54%).

On defense James Ihedigbo got 18 snaps good for 25 percent of the defensive plays. Robert Blanton still saw most of the work at safety opposite Corey Graham as he got 48 snaps for 66 percent of the workload. But he left on the second to last play with a foot injury.

Bills CB Ronald Darby was benched late in the first half in favor of veteran CB Corey White. White would play the entire second half at Darby’s familiar left cornerback spot. Head coach Rex Ryan explained why in his postgame press conference.

“He was sick. He wasn’t feeling good. It’s my fault,” said Ryan. “I should’ve pulled him earlier, so that’s on me. He’s a much better player than what he showed out there. That was a mistake on my part, not his. He gave us what he had. I just know he wasn’t feeling well. So that’s why I did what I did.”

Darby had a pass interference call go against him down by Buffalo’s goal line giving Seattle a 1st-and-goal at the Bills three-yard line. Christine Michael would go in for a touchdown on the next play.

It’s not often that a player logs 100 plays in a single game, but both Corey Graham and Corey White hit the century mark on Sunday against the Cardinals.

Both Graham and White played on defense and special teams Sunday. White started in place of the injured Ronald Darby, which was why he saw the most playing time on defense since he’s been in a Bills uniform. According the NFL game book’s playtime percentage, White was on the field for all 81 plays on defense and 19 plays on special teams for a total of 100 plays.

Corey Graham was also on the field for all 82 defensive snaps and logged another nine on special teams for a total of 101 plays Sunday.

Seventy-five to 85 plays is considered high. One hundred or more is unusually high. Safe to say there will be some extra time in the cold tub for both defensive backs today.

Bills fans may have been nervous when they saw that Ronald Darby was inactive against one of the most high flying offenses in the NFL. But Bills players knew they had Corey White to step up and step in.

All White did was capably handle coverage assignments against the likes of Michael Floyd, Larry Fitzgerald and Jaron Brown and come close to leading the team in tackles.

White had nine tackles, which was second only to Zach Brown with 12. He also had one of Buffalo’s four fourth quarter interceptions.

“Corey is a good cornerback,” said Stephon Gilmore. “When he came in he made plays. He’s very instinctive. That’s what you’ve got to do when somebody goes down. Somebody has to step up and not have that much drop off and he did that. He had a great day. D-line had a great day, the linebackers got to the quarterback and we made plays on the back end.”

“That’s what we harp on,” said White. “We’re DBs and and we want to make plays. When the ball is in the air we gotta feel like it’s ours every play. That’s what we’ve been doing in training camp, OTAs. We just made plays on the ball.”

CB Ronald Darby, who was nursing a hamstring injury that kept him limited this week in practice is listed as questionable for the game this weekend. If he can’t go Corey White is expected to step in at his left cornerback position.

White, who spent part of the 2015 season in Arizona, has familiarity with the Cardinals receiving corps and has been providing what intel he can to his fellow DBs.

“I’ll help out a little bit, but they run so much stuff on offense and it’s different every week so we can really only go out there and play and do our assignment,” said White.

Nickell Robey-Coleman missed last week’s preseason game with a knee injury, suffered in the final week of training camp when he was accidentally leg whipped by Kevon Seymour. He missed practice again on Sunday, but doesn’t see his injury putting him in jeopardy of missing the season opener.

“Yeah, give me, I feel like another week, two weeks I will be ready,” said Robey-Coleman, who worked on the side Sunday with the strength and conditioning staff. “I am doing good. I did a lot of running today, side to side movement and things like that and it felt real good on my joints, and felt good on my body.”

With Robey-Coleman and Seymour (hamstring) both injured, Corey White and Sterling Moore have assumed top nickel corner duties on defense.

As we profiled on Buffalobills.com today, one of the main reasons Corey White was signed by the Bills was because of Assistant head coach Rob Ryan’s familiarity with the cornerback. He coached him in New Orleans for three seasons and says there’s a lot to like about the veteran DB.

In a recent appearance on the John Murphy Show, Ryan explained what he likes about White’s game and why he thinks White will like playing in Buffalo’s defense.

“Corey’s a very good football player and I think he’s going to love it here,” Ryan said. “He’s going to love the head coach, number one. This is a tough kid, he’s a hard-nosed kid, but he needs somebody to believe in him and he’s got that here in Buffalo.”

We all know Rex loves cornerbacks who can handle press coverage. The Bills head coach has talked up Ronald Darby and Stephon Gilmore plenty, but some new arrivals are getting some praise from Ryan.

Early on in OTAs Ryan had some high praise for sixth-round pick Kevon Seymour, who continues to get reps with the starting unit opposite Darby in the absence of Gilmore. Now he’s spotted another new arrival at the position that has impressed him of late.

“Another guy I’ve been really impressed with is Corey White,” said Ryan. “He’s done a real nice job for us as well. I’m real fired up about that.”

Meanwhile Ryan remains encouraged by the progress of Seymour.

“Throwing that rookie into the fire… without Stephon here we’ve been putting him in with that first group just to see how he would respond and he’s done a great job,” he said.

More importantly Brown and White provide much needed experience and talent at two need positions prior to the arrival of the NFL draft. Armed with eight picks Buffalo is expected to address their defense more than once at the end of April. But prior to the signing of Brown and White one could argue that the Bills would’ve had to add two linebackers and at least one cornerback. Now the pressure to do all of that in the draft is noticeably reduced.

Buffalo liked Brown over free agent Bruce Carter, who visited last week due in part to speed, something the Bills linebacking corps still needs to add more of come the draft. Defensively it’s a subpackage league and linebackers that can run, cover and hit are the ones who are in demand. Carter has since signed with the Jets.

White offers depth at cornerback, a position that was also short on experience after Leodis McKelvin and Ron Brooks departed via free agency.